1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a still image display device and system that display still images in the manner of moving images, and an imaging device.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
Digital cameras, personal computers, cellular phones and the like have the function of reading out still images stored in a memory and reproducing and displaying the still images on a liquid crystal display. The equipment having the function of reproducing and displaying the still images is hereinafter referred to as a still image display device.
The still image display device generally continues displaying the single still image, as long as there is no frame advance operation. The continuous display of the still image is not entertaining enough, and therefore an improvement is made to enhance realism such as a moving image by means of changing a display state of the still image. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-290831 describes a still image display device that displays a still image in which a focus position gradually moves from a near view to a far view. According to this still image display device, a blur function, which represents the degree of blurriness caused by a deviation from a focus, is calculated with the use of a near view focus image focusing on a near view side of an object and a far view focus image focusing on a far view side of the same object. Thereby, there are produced a plurality of blur taste adjustment images that can be obtained by imaging the object at arbitrary focus positions. By sequentially displaying the plurality of blur taste adjustment images, the still image is displayed in the manner of a moving image such that the focus position gradually moves from the near view to the far view.
The still image display device described in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-290831 has a problem that large variation in a blur amount makes the image hard to see, because the focus position moves from the near view to the far view. Also, the production of the images having the plurality of focus positions by setting the blur function requires a complex arithmetic operation.